Just Shy of Shadow
by rubyminuszero
Summary: A collection of 42 oneshots focused on the thoughts of every character. Not very much dialogue; mostly thought. Rated T for some violence, minor blood, and depressing thoughts and situations.
1. Lucas: Overshadowed

Lucas buried his face in his arms. He had been beaten, and his partner Ness was forever gone.

Lucas didn't know what happened. He remembered rolling to avoid Mario, smacking him in the face with a baseball bat, when Snake's C4 had exploded. And he couldn't remember anything else.

"Lucas," said a voice.

Lucas stood up and turned around.

The Pokémon Trainer held out a hand. "What's wrong, Lucas?"

Lucas allowed the nameless trainer to help him up, but merely shook his head.

"It's time for the next battle," said the Pokémon Trainer. "I heard about Ness. I'm sorry, but this is no time for grief. We have a match against Luigi and Lucario."

Lucas nodded, but kept grieving in his mind.

The Trainer let his Charizard out. Charizard roared and stretched its wings.

Lucas looked down, but the Charizard put a claw on his shoulder. Lucas looked up to see Charizard smiling at him.

The Pokémon Trainer winked from his safe haven behind the stage.

A pipe appeared on the left side of the stage. Luigi popped out, as he always did, but there was something odd about Luigi. His cap was hanging over his eyes, something that almost never happened.

Lucario teleported onto the stage in a blue beam, and closed his eyes, as he always did, but there was something odd about him too. The four black aura sensors on his head did not lift. Lucario's head drooped, like Lucas.

Lucas looked at Charizard questioningly. The great dragon merely shrugged.

"GO!" cried the voice that always began the match.

But Luigi merely sat down, cross-legged, and buried his face in his hands, as Lucas had just done not a minute ago.

Lucario opened his eyes. "I sense… sadness…" said he, albeit without moving his mouth.

Lucas copied Luigi. He wasn't sure why Luigi was disturbed, but he knew that Luigi had always been overshadowed by Mario, and nobody ever asked Luigi about his problems. Likewise, being overshadowed by Ness, nobody ever asked Lucas about his problems, except the Pokémon Trainer, and maybe Meta Knight and Kirby.

Then he suddenly realized: Ness had beaten Mario before he himself had been defeated. Even though Luigi never seemed to care about Mario, they were still brothers.

With a sudden jolt, Lucas realized that the two minutes were already almost up.

"Time," said the voice, and Lucas's world froze, in preparation for the next battle.


	2. ROB: Ministry

He bowed his head as the orange-suited woman and the yellow electric rat prepared to attack him. They paused, noticing his falter.

A pounding noise registered in his mind. Somebody was trying to break through the door about four meters above them.

With a resounding SMACK, a giant ape, a smaller monkey, an odd-faced midget in a spacesuit, and a muscular man wearing a helmet and a blue bodysuit landed on the floor right behind the armored woman and the rat. Inside sources confirmed them as Aran, Samus, the bounty hunter; Pikachu, the Electric Mouse Pokémon; Kong, Donkey, the great ape from the jungle; Kong, Diddy (nephew relation to Donkey Kong); Olimar, Captain, the intergalactic explorer; and Falcon, Captain, the great F-Zero racer.

A red glow registered in his sensors, and he turned around to see his master, the great Ganondorf, as an infrared-neptunium hologram.

Ganondorf held up a hand. All the R.O.B.s turned to face him. They rolled forward, instantly at attention.

He knew what Ganondorf was going to do, and he was tired of it. He quickly blocked the R.O.B.s from the Subspace Bomb racks. He knew he would probably be disassembled, but he didn't care. The R.O.B.s stopped and looked at each other questioningly.

His sensors detected a light growl, barely ten decibels, from Ganondorf's direction. Ganondorf pressed a control button that was almost hidden in his fist.

The R.O.B.s instantly faced the red holographic image of their dictator, optical organs glowing a great hypnotic red, and rushed forward, past him, the Ancient Minister, and began pulling Subspace Bombs from their racks.

He couldn't take the horror anymore. He dashed forward and knocked the R.O.B.s away from their respective Subspace Bombs. Ganondorf simply creased his earthen forehead, and pressed the palm-button harder.

The hypnotic lights in the R.O.B.s' optical sensors were flashing so much that they were doing permanent damage to their cranial hardware, which caused them to shake uncontrollably. They all turned to face him, and their optical zero-point laser shots began firing at him. He tried to escape, but the instant-laser shots were hitting him too much. With approximately the 41st hit that he took, he caught fire. He bowed his head, not caring that his heat sensors were on overload mode.

The R.O.B.s rolled past him and plugged their arms into the Subspace Bombs, pulling them back towards Samus, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Olimar, and Captain Falcon. They pulled, and the bombs opened, revealing purple orbs of Subspace energy, and three-minute timers instantly began ticking. Ganondorf laughed, evil, hard, unmercifully, while the Ancient Minister stood there, burning into oblivion.

Donkey Kong yanked at an R.O.B. as hard as he could. Diddy Kong tried pushing an R.O.B. head. Captain Falcon tossed an R.O.B. to the ground. Samus pulled at an R.O.B. with her tractor beam. But to no avail.

Ganondorf's image disappeared, revealing a flock of Auroros to descend upon them. The burning Ancient Minister shot optical laser bullets at the Auroros, causing them to explode. With one giant thrust, he cast off his burning armor to reveal his true self: R.O.B.

R.O.B. looked at the now locked R.O.B. sentry surrounding him. His optical sensors glowed blue, and so did the orbs of another R.O.B. Diddy Kong pointed to the way out, but R.O.B. merely shook his head and looked down.

Captain Falcon checked his watch and pressed a hand to his helmet. He waved a hand, wordlessly telling them to follow him. He dashed toward the vertically descending tunnel, closely followed by Samus, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Captain Olimar, and lastly, R.O.B. With reluctance, Captain Falcon and R.O.B. dove, followed by the rest.

An R.O.B. Sentry soldier connected to a Subspace Bomb watched them jump in, and he looked down. This was how it would end.


End file.
